Ephesians 1:13 In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed… Salvation in its proper sense means deliverance from something that is feared or suffered. For though salvation is sometimes taken to denote the happiness of heaven, yet still even then it directs our attention to those miseries out of which it is necessary that we be rescued before heaven can either be attained or enjoyed. That we may understand, therefore, the full import of this term, salvation, so frequently used and so vaguely apprehended, we must look to the situation in which we stand as sinners. We must look to it in its every aspect and in all its extent. We cannot at present do more than take a rapid sketch of those particular and specific benefits which are denoted by the term salvation in reference to the evils from which it delivers. 1. It implies deliverance from ignorance — not from ignorance of human science or of worldly objects, with which however the gospel that reveals it does not forbid us to make ourselves acquainted, and upon which it throws a sanctifying light — but from ignorance of God, the first and the last, the greatest and the wisest, the holiest and the best of beings; the maker of all things; the centre of all perfection; the fountain of all happiness. 2. The salvation here spoken of implies deliverance from guilt. 3. The salvation we have been considering implies deliverance from the power of sin. We are naturally the slaves of this power. Sin reigns in us, as the descendants of apostate Adam. We cannot throw off its yoke by any virtue or efforts of our own. And so long as it maintains its ascendency, we are degraded, and polluted, and miserable. But provision is made in the gospel for our emancipation. 4. The salvation of the gospel implies deliverance from the ills and calamities of life. It does not imply this literally. For under the dispensation of the gospel there is, strictly speaking, no exemption from bodily disease, from outward misfortune, or from the thousand distresses that humanity is heir to. But Christ has given such views of the providence of God, He has brought life and immortality so clearly to light, and has so modified and subdued the operations of sin, which is the immediate or the ultimate cause of all our sufferings, that these are no longer real evils to them that believe. 5. The salvation here mentioned implies deliverance from the power and the fear of death. 6. And then, while the salvation revealed in the gospel implies our deliverance from all these evils, it also implies our admission into the heavenly state. It is in order to bring us there at last that all the other benefits we have been speaking of were conferred upon us. We were delivered from ignorance that we might know what heaven is — that we might be made acquainted with the way that leads to it — that we might be aware of the preparation necessary for dwelling in it. We were delivered from the sentence of condemnation that our forfeiture of heaven might be annulled, and that God might justly and consistently introduce us into its recompense and its glory. We were delivered from the power of sin that, by the removal of moral depravity, and the renewal of God's image on the soul, and the cultivation of holy habits, we might be qualified for the exercises and the joys of heaven, which are all most pure and immaculate. We were delivered from the ills and calamities of life as to all their evil influence, that they might be made instrumental in purifying our character, that they might be prevented from discouraging us in our progress towards heaven, and that they might enhance our blessedness there, by the greatness of our transition from trouble and sorrow to rest and joy. And we were delivered from the power and the fear of death that soul and body, united as constituent parts of the same redeemed child of God, might become, in heaven, joint partakers of that felicity for which they had acquired a joint title, and for which they made a joint preparation, upon earth; and that, regarding death as a messenger of peace rather than as the king of terrors, the prospect of his coming to summon us away might comfort us in the midst of those distresses, while it stimulated us to the discharge of those duties by which our meetness for glory would be hastened and matured. (Andrew Thomson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, |
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